A recipe that takes an hour doesn’t have to take your entire evening. Some dinners become much more manageable when you spread the preparation across several nights. This mushroom and honeynut squash galette is a good example. Caramelized onions take time. Roasting vegetables takes time. But those jobs don’t all need to happen right before you want to eat. Cook the onions one evening when you’re already in the kitchen. Roast the mushrooms and squash another evening. Grate the cheese and plan for the puff pastry to thaw in the refrigerator according to its package directions. Then assemble and bake when you’re ready for dinner. You can divide the work across four evenings if that fits your schedule. The point is to give yourself smaller tasks that are easier to fit into a busy week. These are the cooking tips I find most useful: look at a recipe before starting and ask which parts can be finished early. A long preparation time often includes several separate jobs. Once you spot them, you can decide when each one fits. For this galette, the filling needs to cool before it goes onto the chilled pastry anyway. Preparing the vegetables ahead gives them that cooling time and leaves you with less to do at assembly. Refrigerate the cooked components in covered containers, and keep the preparation within a few days. On baking night, you have the onions, roasted vegetables, and cheese ready to layer into the pastry. That’s a different feeling from starting with whole onions, unpeeled squash, and a frozen package of dough when everyone is asking about dinner. I like having something special to serve without putting every step into one evening. A little preparation here and there can make room for a homemade meal you might otherwise skip. Which recipe would you make more often if you could split up the work? Save this meal prep idea, and join Cestari TableTalk through the link in my bio. Make Meals Matter. Tips, Recipes, & Deals. #MealPrep #MakeAheadMeals #CookingTips #DinnerPrep #HomeCooking
